


These are the things that make a man:

by MadHatter13



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 05:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3557732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadHatter13/pseuds/MadHatter13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In memory of Sir Terry Pratchett.</p>
<p>GNU</p>
            </blockquote>





	These are the things that make a man:

_Strength enough to build a home_

  
The iconograph had come out perfectly.

‘Are you sure you vill not be havink another one?’ Said the vampire behind the demon-driven apparatus (an abomination unto Nuggan no more). ‘It is rather… Amatureish.’

Sergeant Major Jack Jackrum looked down at the little square that held his new life. From the paper, his grandkids beamed back at him, some of them not so surreptitiously jiggling a leg when the picture was taken. His son looked absolutely chuffed (the kind of word he might use in the circumstances, but then he’d been raised by his grandmother.) And his daughter-in-law looked confused, but happy.

Jackrum himself sat like a red sunset in the middle of the orderly chaos.

‘Nah. But… Could ya give me another copy?’

‘Ov course.’

Later, he laid it down in the box with his cutlasses and a certain something, and watched the postman carry it off. Then he turned back, and walked back to his son’s home – _his_ home.  
Sergeant Major Jack Jackrum,  
Retired.

 

* * *

 

The city bustled, as it always did, but you might imagine that it was a different kind of bustling than before. One perhaps with a smidgeon more purpose. Perhaps even without the edge of terror that had lurked in every mind ever so often for the last fifteen years.

Lord Havelock Vetinari, Patrician as of seven and a quarter minutes ago, turned away from the window.

It was a clockwork, made entirely of human cogs, but every cog had something that belonged only to them, and yet also to every inhabitant of the sprawling metropolis. Previous rulers might have assumed that the city owed them something, but it had long been clear to him that it was the other way around.

They owed the city.

 

* * *

 

The schoolhouse, which would probably always be known as the Stone Barn at Home Farm, was full of people.

More accurately, it was full of quite small people, also known as children (although glimpses of red and blue in the rafters indicated the presence of the Nac Mac Feegle, who were smaller and more People than possibly anyone else.)

And they were being remarkably quiet. This was because Preston was speaking. And when Preston spoke, he could open up new doors in your head that you didn‘t know were there. Every child listened enraptured as he regaled them on how their world was a disc on the back of four elephants carried through space on the back of an enormous turtle.

Of course, it wouldn‘t last forever. They were children; they would get antsy, and request going to the bathroom, or start throwing things, and probably Jeremy would try to pull Suzy‘s hair again. But that was alright, because Tiffany had taught her about leverage, and it was certain that before noon Jeremy would be face down in the dirt before he could steal Suzy‘s ribbons again.

Tiffany Aching, Witch, smiled. Then she picked up her broomstick, but did not get on, and walked down the hill to the town to see old widow Thimbles about her arthritis.   
On days like this, she did not need to fly to see clearly.

 

* * *

 

_Time enough to hold a child_

  
It had been a long shift, but then the shifts were always long. He wasn‘t sure he would have it any other way.

Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch (after all these years he still couldn‘t quite stomach Duke, especially in private) took off his boots, and stifled a groan when his back creaked alarmingly. Then he went to see if he was late enough for dinner so that someone would have eaten all of the salad but not so late that all of the mutton and gravy and potatoes had been devoured.

Young Sam, fourteen year old, gangly and angled and knobbly like his father, but with the kind face of his mother, was sitting alone at the table, picking at his food.

Vimes said nothing, because Sybil had managed to raise their son not to be the emotional brick wall his dad was. He would tell if something was bothering him.

‘Dad?’

‘Hm?’ Vimes piled meat and potatoes and approximately a gallon of gravy on his dish, and pulled up a chair.

‘Do you ever think about how one day parents might put down their kids and never pick them up again?’

There was a blank silence.

‘I mean, I just feel like I’m getting to old to be someone’s kid anymore and it’s –‘

He didn’t get any further before Sam Vimes, father, hauled him up from his chair in a mighty bear hug so that his feet dangled only a few inches off the ground. It was difficult to get any higher, since it seemed that Young Sam would inherit his height from his mother.

‘Dad! You’ll throw out your back again!’

‘Rubbish, I’ll be fine.’ In fact, his knees were starting to turn to jelly and his back was on fire, but he would rather get stabbed than admit it. ‘If you remember anything at all, Young Sam, just remember that you’re never too old to have a father.’

His son patted his back weakly as his feet finally reached the ground again. ‘Alright. Alright, dad.’

 

* * *

 

The kid was crying, and getting snot all over Sergeant Perks‘ shoulder, but she would be damned if she pulled away now. Mal was somewhere up ahead with the rest of the recruits, distracting them just long enough for Polly to have a little chat with their newest, who had looked haunted and morose ever since being conscripted. Admittedly it was with the typical bluster of ‘Cor, sure is exciting to be in the army, lads!’ But clearly something was wrong.

Which was how she came to the current situation.

‘All right, soldier, settle down,’ she said, patting her ineffectually on the back. ‘Just tell me what’s wrong.’

Private Jimkin’s lip quivered, but she managed to say, ‘Well, Private Whelks and Private Tourney both wear the, the girls’ uniform, and they’re girls, right.’

Polly nodded.

‘And Filly and Burkes and Canter wear the men’s uniform, and only Burkes is a girl, right?’

Polly nodded again.

‘Well… Well, I wear the men’s uniform, and they say I’m a girl but. But I’m really not.’

And Polly remembered the first day, when Jimkin arrived, chest bound down so tightly he could barely breathe. And how Mal had to lead him away to tell him that, appearance be damned, he’d do himself a mischief and probably break a rib if he wasn’t careful.

‘Is this going to be about socks?’ Polly asked, without quite meaning to say it out loud. Thankfully, the slang had spread through the squad in what was estimated to be -0.7 seconds, so the lad just looked miserable, and nodded.

Polly put an arm around his shoulders, and said, ‘Lad, there are a lot of things that make a man. Iron enough to make a nail, for a start. You know that song?’ The kid nodded. ‘Well, it doesn’t say anything in there about the private arrangements of your sock drawer.’

Jimkin sniffled. ‘It. It still _hurts_ , though.’

‘I know, lad. Mal knows more about this stuff than I do, and they’ll help if you ask. I promise no biting will be involved. But if you say you are a man, that’s what you are. That’s an order, soldier.’

The kid started crying again, but he was smiling at the same time, so maybe that was an improvement. Polly just stroked his hair.

‘You’re my little lad,’ she said. ‘And I’ll take care of you.’

 

* * *

 

The carpet seemed to stretch on for infinity around the little girl where she stood and looked up at the looming desk. There was a scratch on her face, and her dress was rumpled and her knees were scuffed. But she stood to a slightly vibrating nervous attention as Miss Susan leaned over the desk to give her a closer look.

‘Miss Alice told me that you got in a fight on the playground today,’ said the Teacher, and to the watching class, it sounded like the doors of some final gate slamming shut.

The little girl nodded. The vibrating, which was slowly but surely making her drift across the carpet, momentarily jittered.

‘And why was that?’ In the distance, the class could almost hear the stars slowly halting their spin across the universe, as all life seemed to blink out of existence.

The girl was starting to look a bit blurry. ‘Miss! Neil was chasing Emily and trying to hold her hand even when she told him not to and then he got her and she said it hurt so I kicked him in the socks!’

The slow encroaching of glaciers across the land seemed to still momentarily as the Teacher paused. Then: ‘Socks?’

The girl shrugged. ‘That’s what my aunty Magda calls them.’

A second pause, and then Judgement.

‘Very good.’ The thousand megawatt stare of Miss Susan toned down as she leaned back. ‘An appropriate response, I think, if provoked. You may be seated.’

And the Apocalypse was averted, and the class went back to their algebra in peace.

* * *

 

 

_Love enough to break a heart_

  
‘I can’t be having with this.’

Nanny Ogg put her head on one side, and squinted. ‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘I recon it’s all right.’

The stony silence of Granny Weatherwax descended like a druid’s megalithic computer.   
Nanny shrugged. Then: ‘You could go an awful long way on one of these things,’ she said.

‘Gytha, it is a machine that eats coal and spits steam and probably goes fast enough to remove your kidneys via your ears. We are not getting on.’

On the platform, the train chuffed as the stokers stoked the boilers so that it would be ready to depart on time. It was a rain day in Sto Lat, and Nanny found herself thinking longingly of warmer places.

‘We could go pretty much anywhere, I hear,’ she said. ‘Pseudopolis. Ankh-Morpork. Genua. Quirm. We never went to Quirm, did we?’

‘Gytha Ogg! We are not dropping everything to go gallivanting across the world in a tin can!’

‘Or Uberwald, although I hear the weather’s piss poor. Or even Klatch. I wonder if they has witches in Klatch.’

‘Gytha-‘

Esme Weathwax stopped. There are times when you realize that next to you is the perfect person to experience extraordinary things with.

The train left ten minutes later, and the conductor finds himself praying to any god that will listen that the two old women will get off at the first stop possible. He is not nearly so lucky.

 

* * *

 

‘Or _right_ ye wee scuggins! How would ye like a face full o’ _heid_!’

His sons tumbled across the floor of the mound as their uncles mobbed them in a charge that would have had William Wallace wipe a happy tear from his eye, if they’d managed to at least get both his head and his hands in a close enough proximity to each other.

Rob Anybody feegle grinned manically (the only way for a feegle) as he watched the carnage, and knew his clan will fight every fight to the last breath before going to the Last World. It’s a concept that he knows the Big Wee Hag hasn’t quite got a finger on yet, but it’s obvious enough if you pay attention. Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you have to give up on living.

As far as he’s concerned, this world is the best afterlife that’s on offer, and he’ll fight anyone who tries to kick him out.

 

* * *

 

He should not have priorities of any sort. His work is as egalitarian as can be; there is no room for favouritism.

He _thinks_ instead of feeling. He can _think_ compassion, and sympathy, and concern, and affection. But, like his daughter pointed out a long time ago (the blink of an eye in his collected existence but still, so long ago) he cannot feel those things.

‘Have a chocolate.’

But, when you come right down to it, really, what was the difference?

TELL ME, WHICH IS THE ONE WITH THE MARZIPAN?

His granddaughter snorts, and discreetly tries to get him to eat all the nougat.

Death doesn‘t mind.

 

 

And,

  
_These are the things that make a man:_

  
The last of the sand runs to the bottom of the hourglass, and the cowled figure puts it away. Then it reaches out a hand to the equally black-clad man, who is just rising to his feet.

IF YOU WILL JUST STEP THIS WAY?

‘Of course, just let me find my hat.’

The man looks up.

‘Huh. I thought you might turn up.’

I TURN UP FOR EVERYONE.

‘I suppose you’re right. Does that mean there’s a desert?’

SEE FOR YOURSELF.

The silver sands stretch on forever under an empty sky. Behind them, there is the dark door.

‘Well, how about that. I was right.’

NO NEED TO RUB IT IN.

‘No, no… Still, points for guessing, eh?’

The cloaked figure leans on the scythe with a degree of mild embarrassment that should not be so apparent in someone who doesn’t technically have a face and says, WOULD YOU LIKE SOME COMPANY ON YOUR JOURNEY?

The behatted man looks, for a moment, surprised. ‘You can do that?’

THERE ARE… CIRCUMSTANCES. EXCEPTIONS. ALWAYS.

There is a possible grin, or laughter, although not the kind that’s heard.

‘I think I will, then. I suppose we have a great many things to discuss.’ The man turns, smiling, to face the dark desert. ‘I’ve been looking forward to this part.’

The sand drifts up in tiny clouds beneath their feet, and voices become muffled in the distance.

‘So you’re saying a sandwich _might_ have worked?’

POSSIBLY. IF YOU LIKE JAM.

‘What about marmalade?

I’M NOT SURE. I DON’T THINK ANYONE HAS EVER TRIED TO DO MARMALADE.

The last of the words drift off, before all sound is swallowed by the blank expanse of empty sand.

The desert seems endless, but infinity often depends on where you are standing.

In any case, it is not a lonely march.


End file.
